The World of Myth Magazine

"What was that?" Frowning, Layla turned away from the stove, and stared up at the ceiling.

"Huh?" Her sixteen-year-old daughter Sierra glanced up from her laptop, expression blank.

"You didn't hear it?"

"Hear what?"

"A thump. It sounded like it came from upstairs, and I know I didn't imagine it." After removing the tuna casserole from the oven, Layla set it on the kitchen table, and turned off the flame beneath the vegetables she was cooking on the stovetop. She took off her apron, hung it up, and walked toward the hall. "I'll be right back. I'm going to look around upstairs."

"You don't have to do that, Mom."

"Why not?"

Sierra glanced away, cheeks flushing.

Layla narrowed her eyes. "What aren't you telling me, young lady?"

"I took Maxi to my room a while ago, and..."

"You know that puppy isn't allowed up there. I've told you the same thing time and time again. He's nowhere close to being potty-trained yet and often has accidents just from getting excited. You saw what he did on the porch one day. Dribbles here, dribbles there, and what looked like diarrhea everywhere. If I find piles of poop upstairs, I'll..."

"I know. You'll ground me. I'll go check and if he left stink anywhere, I'll clean it up."

After her daughter walked away, Layla stepped outside onto their front porch and sat on a chair. She lit a cigarette and studied the quarter moon way above her. But she stiffened when she heard rustling to her right, where a dense line of shrubs ran along the boundary between their property and their neighbor's.

"Hello? Who's there?" she called out. When nobody answered, she muttered, "Another rabbit or possum, I bet."

Someone's head popped up from behind the bushes, and she flinched, gasping. Shadows concealed the person, so she couldn't see his face, and whoever it was ducked back down quickly..

"You're trespassing on private property, and I'm calling the police," she threatened. She heard what sounded like footsteps, louder at first but rapidly getting fainter until she no longer heard anything at all.

Using the flashlight on her phone, she shone the light on the shrubs, cautiously approaching them. She walked their length but didn't see anyone and figured the prowler must have taken off down the street. Grimacing, she wished the area was better lit. It used to be, but the closest streetlights had recently gone out and they hadn't been replaced yet.

Layla saw a dark lump on the ground several yards away and went toward it. Once she got closer, she realized what she was looking at and shrieked, almost stumbling over her own feet in her haste to get away.

"Help!" she screamed, running for home. "Merrill!" Her husband had been working extra shifts at his job for weeks now. Today was his day off, and he'd gone to sleep early in preparation for starting early at work tomorrow. She yelled for him again, but he didn't appear. Fumbling with her phone, she frantically dialed 9-1-1.

Thirty-nine minutes later

"Mrs. Farr, could it have been a trash bag you saw?" Officer Babbett asked. "Or maybe a dog or coyote? Or even a large raccoon? We looked everywhere, and there's no sign of a body. But it wouldn't be anything new for an animal to wander out of the nearby woods. That happens all the time."

"No, it was a person," she insisted. "I can tell the difference between people and animals. Or inanimate objects. And please call me Layla. Being addressed as 'Mrs.' makes me feel ancient."

"All right — Layla," Babbett's partner, Officer Silner said. "I need to go ahead and get some more information from you about what you saw. Was it a man or woman?"

"I couldn't tell," she replied. "He or she — I'll just say he — was lying face down."

"Could you make out the color of his hair?" Babbett studied her, pen poised over his notepad, but she shook her head.

Siler asked, "Did you form an impression about the person's height?"

Layla frowned. "Merrill — that's my husband — is 6'1" and when he wears his long coat, it reaches the middle of his calves. The person I saw had a coat on. The bottom of it was below the back of his knees, so I think he's about the same height as Merrill."

"What kind of coat?"

"Merrill has a trench coat."

"I meant the type of coat on the body."

"Oh. Sorry. It was a trench coat, too. Grey, I believe. And I saw something dark and shiny on the ground right beside the body. I think it could've been blood. In fact, I'm sure of it."

At the police station the next day, Officer Silner perused a lab report. "Well, the woman was right — at least, about something being on the ground."

"Which woman are you talking about?" Babbett asked. "We spoke to several today, and a few yesterday, too."

"Layla Farr. Someone had dug up part of the soil where she saw the body — or what she believed was a body — and somebody poured bleach on the spot."

"That's quite revealing. No one would go to that trouble unless he had something to hide. Something incriminating like blood. And I assume whoever it was must've removed the body also."

"That means he — or she — was probably nearby the whole time, just waiting till Mrs. Farr left. But no one's been reported missing."

"You mean not yet.."

eight days later

"Well, we finally have a body," Officer Silner commented.

"Two bodies," Babbett corrected his partner. "But these are the wrong ones. We know who they are this time, and who killed them. Everyone does." He picked up the newspaper on his desk, scowled at it, and read aloud, "Love Triangle Turns Deadly."

"Reporters don't waste any time broadcasting dirty secrets, do they?"

"No. They're like flies on poop."

"Of course, many people make it overly easy for them. Bad choices here, bad choices there, and the reporters have more and more stuff to write about."

Babbett nodded. "If you ask me, a married couple bringing another partner into their relationship is like waiting for a time bomb to go off. You gotta figure a husband or wife is bound to get jealous of the other person at some point."

"The wife did. When she realized her husband was involved with the other woman on the side, she blew them both away."

"Point-blank, too. She riddled their bodies with bullets. Couldn't get them any deader than that."

"It's open and shut." Silner pursed his lips. "But no leads on our first case. This makes three bodies within the same block and I don't believe in coincidences."

"Neither do I."

two and a half weeks later

"We're missing something important," Babbett groused, slamming the case file down on his desk. "I know it, but I can't put my finger on it."

"Yeah. This stinks." Silner rubbed his forehead. "And I've got this nagging feeling that someone's statement was a bit off when I did interviews."

"Whose statement?"

"I'm not sure."

"Let's go over our notes again and see if we can figure it out."

Several minutes later, Silner stared at the other man with a sheepish look on his face. "I'm an idiot," he said.

"You are a doofus sometimes," Babbett agreed with a snort. "But so was I this time. I told you to check with the stores about coat sales in the past few months, and when you didn't report anything, I took it for granted none had been sold. That was an assumption on my part, and I should've known better than to make one, especially since I've been doing this a lot longer than you have. I should've followed up on the matter by asking you for a status report." He sighed, then shrugged. "Oh, well. No point crying over spilt milk. Get on your phone and start calling around to the stores now. I will, too."

Once they were done, Silner scratched his head. "I knew people bought plain-Jane trench coats, but I didn't realize how popular they were. Every store sold at least one. Most sold several in the last couple months. Some were cash sales, others credit."

Babbett pursed his lips. "My results pretty much match yours, and I took another look at our file. Merrill Farr has a trench coat, and so do three other men on his block. Heck, I know this doesn't have anything to do with the case, but I've got one of those coats myself. How about you?"

"I used to, but my wife told me I looked like some old-timey gangster in it. One day while I was gone to work, she got rid of it. She claimed it accidentally got mixed in with some give-away stuff, but somehow I doubt that."

"Wives," Babbett's mused, shaking his head.

"Can't live with them but can't live without them. Mine sure makes me want to pull my hair out now and then. Sometimes more than that."

Babbett grinned. "You gotta love them, though. And they're bound to get frustrated with us, too. So, I'm sure they'd cheerfully murder us sometimes."

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